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Jackson proposed the Indian Removal Act in a speech he gave in 1829. Native American removal was, in theory, supposed to be voluntary, in practice great pressure was put on Native American leaders to sign removal treaties. While there was some resistance at the time, some Native American leaders who had previously resisted removal now began to reconsider their positions after Jackson's landslide re-election in 1832.
The Removal Act was strongly supported in the South, where states were eager to gain access to lands inhabited by the Five Civilized Tribes. In particular, Georgia, the largest state at that time, was involved in a contentious jurisdictional dispute with the Cherokee nation. Jackson hoped removal would resolve the Georgia crisis.
Although many Americans favored the passage of the Indian Removal Act, there was also significant opposition. Many Christian missionaries, most notably missionary organizer Jeremiah Evarts, protested against passage of the Act. Future U.S. President Abraham Lincoln also opposed the Indian Removal Act. In Congress, New Jersey Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen and Congressman Davy Crockett of Tennessee spoke out against the legislation.
The Removal Act paved the way for the reluctant and often forced migration of tens of thousands of American Indians to the West. The first removal treaty signed after the Removal Act became law was the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek on September 27, 1830, in which Choctaws in Mississippi ceded land east of the river in exchange for payment and land in the West. A Choctaw chief called Thomas Harkins or Nitikechi, was quoted in the Arkansas Gazette as saying the 1831 Choctaw removal was a "trail of tears and death". The Treaty of New Echota, signed in 1835, resulted in the removal of the Cherokee.
The Seminoles did not leave peacefully. Along with fugitive slaves they resisted the removal. The Second Seminole War lasted from 1835 to 1842 and resulted in the forced removal of the Seminoles.
Some of the Native Americans sought recourse in the courts. In the 1823 case of Johnson v. M'Intosh, the Supreme Court handed down a decision which stated that Indians could occupy lands within the United States, but could not hold title to those lands. Later, in the 1832 decision of Worcester v. Georgia, the court held that the Georgia criminal statute that prohibited non-Indians from being present on Indian lands without a license from the state was unconstitutional.The court ruled that the Cherokee Nation was a "distinct community" with self-government "in which the laws of Georgia can have no force." It established the doctrine that the national government of the United States, and not individual states, had authority in American Indian affairs.
But winning the case was of little value because Jackson refused to enforce the court's ruling. He is quoted as having said "[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!"
In 1838, under President Martin Van Buren, the U.S. Army forcibly relocated the Cherokee to Indian Territory (part of present-day Oklahoma), in what would become known as the Trail of Tears.